Tags bridge hand  squeeze  clash squeeze  double squeeze  humorous  USA  Florida  Amelia Island  32034  Ofipd's unique preempt style  bridge hand 

save to my nooz save author to my nooz  digg this

print this article rss comments ( 0 ) alert admin

Related Articles
All articles by bboinquiry

Second adventure of Ofipd, the self-professed world's greatest bridgeplayer. In this hand, he explains the sound logic (?) for his bidding to laydown grand slam, as well as his logic for his play. Normally he charges a large fee for his lesson, but you get to read this and his thoughts for free here.

By bboinquiry Cub Noozer
Published: 13 August 2008 07:06 pm

- "It's just a crime," Ofipd explained to the assembled kibitzers, "the way the BBO profits off my ability, while I get nothing or next to nothing for my efforts."

"How do you think they profit off you", asked echknowme?

"Just look at all the kibitzer here now", Ofipd replied. "I see 82 kibitzers at this table, and each one is getting BBO-placed ads flashed in their faces for cruises, bridge books, up coming tournaments and the like. These kibitzer sit and watch me play for hours per day, and the BBO earns money as they sit there showing them those damn ads. All the while poor me, earns nothing."

"It is a crime against humanity and justice that the BBO profits from my abilities in the form of advertisement revenues, and the Kibitzers profit even more from my abilities, by learning at my feet so to speak. So everyone is profiting from my legendary bridge ability, except for me, the owner of this once in infinity bridge skills. IF that is not a crime, I don't know what is. The BBO owes it to me to create a feature where I can charge kibitzers to sit and watch me play, with the money coming directly to me. "

At that, Ofipd was dealt the next hand, and in first seat vul versus non-vul he held.

The kibitzers began guessing what the maestro might open. one of them said. No, this is clearly a "Weak" another said. You guys can't imagine the brilliance of the maestro another wag explained, what else can he open but a gambling ?

While the kibitzers speculated and argued amongst themselves what he would open, Ofipd made his bid and explained his rationale to them...

Ofipd->Kibitzers "You picked a fine time to kibitz me. Here I demonstrate the correct way to bid strong one suited hands. Normally an opening preempt should be weak, but at these colors (we are RED after all), you need to make them a little stronger than normal. Since I would open on considerably less than this, I would normally consider opening . But could confuse my poor partner, who might think it was backward stayman for a heart preempt. In addition, the gives me an extra trick anyway, so clearly the right bid with this hand is s.

Kibitzer15->Kibitizers: "What is reverse stayman?"

Kibitzer32->Kibitizers: "He meant Namyats, which is stayman spelled backwards... "
Kibitzer73->Kibitzers: "He may have meant namyats, but the suit shown by 's would have been spades, not hearts."

Kibitzer56->Kibitizers: "How much does he charge for lessons? What ever it is, it must be way, way too much."

His partner thought for a while and then raised to , and then the great maestro went into a long tank.

"What is he thinking about?" one kibitzer asked the others. The consensus was he was thinking about what he might be going to eat for dinner. Finally, he came out of his trance and bid 's!!!"

"WTF," about 40 kibitzers exclaimed almost at once.

When the dummy hit following the opening lead, however, it looked like he might have been right with his bid. After seeing the dummy, Ofipd explained his bid this way.



Ofipd->Kibitizers "Partner could not know I held the , so my hand will deliver one more trick than he expected, so I knew to bid the grand slam. The only question is could I trust my partner. Now I have 13 cold tricks, , , and a . I will have to set up my 3rd by ruffing two of them."

"It is time to go about my business effectively", Ofidp explained to the kibitzers. First, I will play low in dummy in case the suit splits badly, i can win my nine and not worry about losing one to the T .

Kibitizer35->Kibitzers: I wonder how much worse than 4-0 the trumps can be split so that KAQJ would pull all without lose of a trick. ?

After the won (east following suit small), Ofidp stated "I can safely cross to the and then return to my hand to pull the last trump if necessary." With that he won the in dummy (West discarding a small heart). Then used the to re-enter his hand to pull the last outstanding trump.

Kibitzer09->Kibitzers "An unsafety play. He protected against a non-problem 3-1 trump split and risked having the ruffed. lol....

On the third round of trumps, dummy discarded a small heart. "Now," explained Ofidp, "all I must do is manage my entries to score my long . " With that, he crossed to the , on which East discarded a small . This was the full hand.


Kibitzer82->Kibitzers "East made the deceptive discard of a spade. Since it was a black card, he assumes that discard will trick Ofipd into thinking clubs are breaking...

"Now the first ruff," Ofidp explained.. as he trumped the , "and use my carefully conserved entries to establish the long ."

Kibitzer34->Kibitzers Omg, he doesn't realize that West has five clubs, the discard did fool him.

Kibitzer02->Kibitzers You can't fool someone who doesn't watch, he simply doesn't count out hands.

With that, he quickly played to the , ruffed another , on which West dropped the , then won the , and lead the dummies last , discarding his saying "ta-da!!!!"

Ofipd's celebration was short-lived as West grabbed the placing the contract down one.

Everyone had something to say. Notaexpert wanted to know why with 13 hcp, his partner opened with a preempt. Ofipd answered by saying, "surely you don't think the had any value??  As you can see the was totally useless on this hand. I had an effective 10 hcp hand he carefully explained. Besides, this was a ridiculous contract, that could never be made. The problem was not my bid, but your careless raise to the slam on only four and half tricks with only two card support."

The kibitzers were less interested in the bidding, they were talking about GIB and it's suggesting that s was cold. When Ofipd finally accepted that GIB suggest the contract could be made, he said he had to be going, he had an appointment with his lawyer over suing the BBO for failure to provide him with compensation for his efforts in making the BBO the number one bridge site in the history of the universe. And with that, he abruptly left the table.

Kibitzer03: The secret to the slam must be a squeeze.. West has to keep clubs, so he will give up spades, East has to keep spades, so no one can keep two hearts. Pull three rounds of trumps, ruff a club, spade to dummy, ruff a club, and then run your trumps. Elementary.

This is when notaexpert, Ofipd long suffering partner, spoke up. Sorry, 03, that line will  not work.  This is the ending your line envisions...

When you cash your last two diamonds, west can let a heart and spade without pain. But you have to throw a heart or a spade away on the first trump (club on the second). Once you discard a spade, East can do so also, it sets up your in your hand, but you have no way to unblock the and get back to your hand to enjoy it.

Then how can it make asked Kibitzer03.

The trick is not to be in a hurry to test 's. Win four 's. throwing diplomatically a small card from both majors from dummy. Only then, win second round in dummy. If 's are 4-2 or 3-3 claim. If West has long 's he has had to come up with three discards on s, and he can no longer stop both majors (if he ever could). Cash one top spade from dummy, then ruff a club to reach this position.




This is similar to the position kibitzer03 suggested, but so far only one club has been ruffed. Now play the penultimate trump. West can not afford a club, nor a heart, so must discard a 10, dummy can now let go one of the "useless" clubs. At the moment, East is pressure free, and will discard a heart.  However, a to the to unblock the spade problem we saw in kibitzer03's ending, and ruff the gets us back the south hand, where the threat is and simultaneously squeezes east in the majors.

"I will add in passing," notaexpert said,  "that  Ofipd was wrong about the when he said it was useless. If you swap the for the , the hand can not be made. Try it for yourself."

Wow, what kind of squeeze is this, asked one kibitzer? No one could quite agree, it had aspects of a trump squeeze, a clash squeeze, a compound squeeze, and a double squeeze. Perhaps it was a clash trump/double squeeze, but they all agreed that one, at least, was worth the price of admission to the BBO. But of course, the BBO is free.

-------------------
Disclaimer, all or nearly all of the characters in this story are fictional. Any similarities to bridge players, living or dead, is purely coincidental.